Windows 11 is already grabbing macOS users’ attention with its new design language and the refined feel to it. But it’s not all about aesthetics for Microsoft, starting Windows 11 you can also run Android apps natively.

Though the only store you can download Android apps officially on Windows 11 is the Amazon Appstore, but if you do not shy away from tweaking things a little on the computer, you can also download the Google Play Store and enjoy the catalog of millions of apps at your disposal.

Special thanks to a third-party developer, ADeltaX, for building the WSAGAScript tool to install Google Play Store on any Windows 11 PC.

Getting your Windows 11 Computer Ready for Google Play Store

Before you can install the Play Store, you will need to enable the ‘Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)’ and ‘Virtual Machine Platform’ features enabled on your machine.

To do so, head to the Settings app from the Start Menu on your PC or by pressing the Windows+i keys together on your keyboard.

After that, click on the ‘Apps’ tab present on the left sidebar of the Settings window.

Next, click on the ‘Optional features’ tile from the right section of Apps settings.

Then, scroll down to locate the ‘Related settings’ section and click on the ‘More Windows features’ tile. This will open a separate window on your screen.

From the Windows Features window, scroll down and locate the ‘Windows Subsystem for Linux’ option and click on the checkbox preceding it to select it.

Next, locate the ‘Virtual Machine Platform’ option in the same window and click on the checkbox preceding the option to select it. Then, click on the ‘OK’ button to install both of these features on your system.

Windows might take some time to install these features on your computer. Please wait, while the process runs in the background.

Once the features are installed, open Microsoft Store on your PC either from the pinned apps section in the Start menu or by searching for it in Windows Search.

On Microsoft Store window, click on the search bar at top of the window, type Ubuntu in, and hit Enter.

After that, click on the ‘Get’ button present on the Ubuntu tile from the search results to install it on your system.

You might need to restart your PC once you have installed all the features to let the changes take effect. Do so from the Start Menu by clicking on the ‘Power’ icon and choosing the ‘Restart’ option.


Manually Install Google Play Store along with Windows Subsystem for Android

Windows Subsystem for Android‘ is a component layer comprising of Linux kernel and Android OS which enables your machine to run Android apps and is crucial to process.

However, since we are going to tweak the Windows Subsystem for Android to accommodate and run the Google Play store. It is required that you have a standalone installer of the package.

Pre-requisites

  • Windows Subsystem for Android msixbundle (Link)
    ProductId: 9P3395VX91NR, Ring: SLOW
  • Google Apps package installer (64-bit | ARM64)
  • File Archiver Tool (WinRAR, 7-Zip, etc.)

Install Google Play store Using Linux PowerShell

Installing Google Play Store on your system is not a very straightforward process. That being said, it is not difficult either; just follow the steps along currently and before you know it, Google Play Store will be installed on your system.

First, head to the directory containing your WSA (Windows Subsystem for Android) package installer (msixbundle) that you downloaded from the link above in the pre-requisite section.

Then, right-click on the .msix file, hover over the ‘Open with’ option and select the installed file archiver on your computer from the list.

Now, locate the .msix package from the list and double-click on it to open it. Then, select all files by pressing the Ctrl+A shortcut and copy them by pressing the Ctrl+C shortcut on your keyboard.

After that, head to your Windows installation drive (C Drive in most cases). Create a new folder and name it Windows Subsystem for Android. Then, paste all the copied files from the msix bundle to this folder by pressing the Ctrl+V shortcut on your keyboard.

Once the files are copied, locate and delete AppxBlockMap.xml, AppxSignature.p7x, [Content_Types].xml, and AppxMetadata folder from the available files and folders. A prompt will appear on your screen to confirm the delete action, click on the ‘Yes’ button to proceed.

Now, head to the Github repository github.com/ADeltaX using your preferred browser. Then, click on the ‘Code’ button and choose the ‘Download ZIP’ option.

Once downloaded, head to the downloads directory and locate the WSAGAScript-main.zip file. Then, double-click on the file to open it.

Next, select all the files and folders inside the zip by pressing the Ctrl+A shortcut and then copy them by pressing the Ctrl+C shortcut on your keyboard.

Now, head back to your Windows installation drive (C drive in most cases). Again create a new folder and name it GAppsWSA. Then, paste all the copied files into this new folder.

Next, head to the ‘Windows Subsystem for Android’ directory you created earlier and select vendor.img, system.img, system_ext.img, and product.img files. Then, copy them by pressing the Ctrl+C shortcut on your computer.

After that, head to the ‘GAppsWSA’ directory you just created and open the ‘#IMAGES’ folder by double-clicking on it.

Now, paste all the copied files into this directory.

Then, head to the directory containing the Gapps zip file and select it. Next, copy the zip file by pressing the Ctrl+C shortcut on your computer.

Head back to the ‘GAppsWSA’ directory and open the ‘#GAPPS’ folder. Then, paste the copied zip file into this directory.

After that, go back to the ‘GAppsWSA’ directory, type bash in the address bar of the window and press Enter to open a WSL window set to the current directory.

Now, on the WSL window, issue the following command and hit Enter on your keyboard. The system might ask you for permission to download, press Y to continue.

apt install lzip unzip

Next, install the dos2unix converter tool in WSL by issuing the following command.

apt install dos2unix

In case the WSL window is throwing an error ‘Unable to locate package dos2unix’, then issue the following commands one-by-one to fix the error.

apt-get update
apt-get install dos2unix

You now need to convert some files, type or copy+paste the following commands one-by-one and hit Enter to execute them individually.

dos2unix ./apply.sh
dos2unix ./extend_and_mount_images.sh
dos2unix ./extract_gapps_pico.sh
dos2unix ./unmount_images.sh
dos2unix ./VARIABLES.sh

Once you have converted the files, issue the following command to begin installing the Google Apps package on your system.

./extract_gapps_pico.sh

Once, issue the following command to mount the images.

./extend_and_mount_images.sh

Once the images are mounted, issue the command below and press Enter.

./apply.sh

Next, unmount all images we previously mounted by issuing the following command.

./unmount_images.sh

Once the images are successfully unmounted, head to the ‘#IMAGES’ folder present under the ‘GAppsWSA’ directory in your Windows installation drive (C drive probably), and copy all the files by first pressing Ctrl+A to select all files and then Ctrl+C to copy the selected files.

Next, head to the ‘Windows Subsystem for Android’ directory you created earlier in your Windows installation drive and paste the files there by pressing the Ctrl+V shortcut. A Windows prompt might appear alerting the same files are already present in the directory. Select the ‘Replace files’ option to proceed.

Then, head to the ‘misc’ folder situated under the ‘GAppsWSA’ directory and copy the ‘kernel’ file present in the folder by first clicking on it and pressing the Ctrl+C shortcut.

Now, head to the ‘Windows Subsystem for Android’ directory and double-click on the ‘Tools’ folder to open it.

After that, rename the existing kernel file to kernel_bak to save it as a backup in case anything goes wrong. Then, paste the copied ‘kernel’ file from the previous folder by pressing the Ctrl+V shortcut.

Next, head to the Start Menu and click on the ‘All apps’ button present in the top right corner.

Now, scroll down to locate and right-click on the ‘Windows Terminal’ tile and choose ‘Run as administrator’ option from the context menu.

Then, a UAC (User Account Control) window might appear on your screen. Click on the ‘Yes’ button to proceed.

On the Terminal window, make you’re on the Windows PowerShell tab and issue the following command.

Add-AppxPackage -Register C:\WindowsSubsystemforAndroid\AppxManifest.xml

PowerShell will now install the package on your system, wait patiently till the process is completed.

Finally, open the Start Menu and click on the ‘Windows Subsystem for Android’ app present under the ‘Recommended’ section.

From the WSA window, locate the ‘Developer options’ tile and toggle the switch next to it to ‘On’ position.

Next, click on the ‘Files’ option to launch the Android OS and also initiate the Play Store on your Windows 11 PC.

An optional diagnostic data prompt may show up on the screen, click to uncheck the checkbox preceding the ‘Share my diagnostic data’ and then click on the ‘Continue’ button.

Finally, to access Play Store on your computer, head to the Start Menu, type Play Store and click on the ‘Play Store’ app from the search results to launch it.

Next, click on the ‘Sign in’ button from the Play Store window and use your Google account credentials to sign in.

Once you’re signed in to the Google Play Store, you will be able to download and install almost all apps from the Play Store to your Windows 11 PC.